On the NASA website:

You could call this "Pac-Man, the Sequel." Scientists with NASA's Cassini mission have spotted a second feature shaped like the 1980s video game icon in the Saturn system, this time on the moon Tethys. (The first was found on Mimas in 2010). The pattern appears in thermal data obtained by Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer, with warmer areas making up the Pac-Man shape.

"Finding a second Pac-Man in the Saturn system tells us that the processes creating these Pac-Men are more widespread than previously thought," said Carly Howett, the lead author of a paper recently released online in the journal Icarus. "The Saturn system - and even the Jupiter system - could turn out to be a veritable arcade of these characters."

Scientists theorize that the Pac-Man thermal shape on the Saturnian moons occurs because of the way high-energy electrons bombard low latitudes on the side of the moon that faces forward as it orbits around Saturn. The bombardment turns that part of the fluffy surface into hard-packed ice. As a result, the altered surface does not heat as rapidly in the sunshine or cool down as quickly at night as the rest of the surface, similar to how a boardwalk at the beach feels cooler during the day but warmer at night than the nearby sand. Finding another Pac-Man on Tethys confirms that high-energy electrons can dramatically alter the surface of an icy moon. Also, because the altered region on Tethys, unlike on Mimas, is also bombarded by icy particles from Enceladus' plumes, it implies the surface alteration is occurring more quickly than its recoating by plume particles.

"Studies at infrared wavelengths give us a tremendous amount of information about the processes that shape planets and moons," said Mike Flasar, the spectrometer's principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "A result like this underscores just how powerful these observations are."

Scientists saw the new Pac-Man on Tethys in data obtained on Sept. 14, 2011, where daytime temperatures inside the mouth of Pac-Man were seen to be cooler than their surroundings by 29 degrees Fahrenheit (15 kelvins). The warmest temperature recorded was a chilly minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit (90 kelvins), which is actually slightly cooler than the warmest temperature at Mimas (about minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit, or 95 kelvins). At Tethys, unlike Mimas, the Pac-Man pattern can also be seen subtly in visible-light images of the surface, as a dark lens-shaped region. This brightness variation was first noticed by NASA's Voyager spacecraft in 1980.

"Finding a new Pac-Man demonstrates the diversity of processes at work in the Saturn system," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Future Cassini observations may reveal other new phenomena that will surprise us and help us better understand the evolution of moons in the Saturn system and beyond."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The composite infrared spectrometer team is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., where the instrument was built.

From the BBC:

Nokia seeks Blackberry sales bans after patent dispute

Nokia has asked courts in the US, UK and Canada to block sales of rival Blackberry smartphones.

It follows a patent dispute between the Finnish company and Blackberry's parent, Research In Motion (RIM).

Nokia says an earlier ruling means RIM is not allowed to produce devices that offer a common type of wi-fi connectivity until it agrees to pay licence fees.

RIM said it would respond to Nokia "in due course".

"Research In Motion has worked hard to develop its leading-edge Blackberry technology and has built an industry-leading intellectual property portfolio of its own," it said in a statement - a possible signal that it might counter sue.

The clash is the latest in a series of legal distractions for the Canadian company at a time it is preparing to launch an operating system that could determine its survival.

Share drop

Nokia's action comes two months after an arbitration ruling by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce in Sweden.

The organisation had been asked to act as an arbitrator in a dispute over RIM's use of handsets and tablets featuring wireless active network (WLAN) connections to the internet. All of RIM's current products use it.

RIM had argued that an earlier licensing deal with Nokia meant it should not have to pay a separate fee for the technologies. However, the tribunal disagreed.

After news of Nokia's latest action was revealed by Computerworld magazine, RIM's shares fell more than 10% in after-hours trading. They later recovered the lost ground when the Nasdaq stock market re-opened.

When contacted by the BBC, Nokia confirmed it had taken action "with the aim of ending RIM's breach of contract", adding it would also continue to pursue a separate case against RIM in Germany involving antenna, email and navigation technologies.

Nokia noted it had licensed its intellectual property rights to more than 40 other companies. The revenue from such deals helps justify its current $11.8bn (£7.4bn) market valuation.

Patent wars

RIM is also fighting several other patent lawsuits at this time.

They include a dispute with Washington-based patent portfolio owner SoftVault Systems, which alleges RIM has infringed its anti-piracy DRM (digital rights management) technologies.

RIM is also involved in a case against California-based Lochner, which is suing a number of big-name tech firms over the way their devices play videos streamed over the internet.

RIM has itself sued others in the past over patents, including Motorola - before the handset division was bought by Google - and the instant message software Kik,

However, the timing of the clash with a big-player like Nokia could be particularly troubling as it comes less than three months before RIM plans to release its first Blackberry 10 handsets.

"RIM has had a tough time losing market segment to other smartphones. And the future of the business is now going to be based on the success of its new operating system, which itself has been delayed," said UK-based patent attorney Andrew Alton, from Urquhart-Dykes & Lord, who has previously acted for Apple.

"Anything else that diverts attention from getting that out there and products shipped and bought is going to be detrimental for the business.

From the BBC:

Stem cells being made from blood

By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

A patient's own blood has been used to make personalised stem cells, which doctors hope will eventually be used to treat a range of diseases.

The team at the University of Cambridge says this could be one of the easiest and safest sources of stem cells.

In a study, published in the journal Stem Cells: Translational Medicine, the cells were used to build blood vessels.

However, experts cautioned that the safety of using such stem cells was still unclear.

Stem cells are one of the great hopes of medical research. They can transform into any other type of cell the body is built from - so they should be able to repair everything from the brain to the heart, and eyes to bone.

One source of stem cells is embryos, but this is ethically controversial and they would be rejected by the immune system in the same way as an organ transplant.

Researchers have shown that skin cells taken from an adult can be tricked into becoming stem cells, which the body should recognise as part of itself and would not reject.

The team at Cambridge looked in blood samples for a type of repair cell that whizzes through the bloodstream repairing any damage to the walls of blood vessels. These were then converted into stem cells.

Dr Amer Rana said this method was better than taking samples from skin.

"We are excited to have developed a practical and efficient method to create stem cells from a cell type found in blood," she said.

"Tissue biopsies are undesirable - particularly for children and the elderly - whereas taking blood samples is routine for all patients."

Dr Rana told the BBC the cells also appeared to be safer to use than those made from skin.

"The fact that these appeared to be fairly stable is very promising," she said.

"The next stage obviously is to say, 'OK if we can do all this, let's actually make some clinical grade cells,' we can then move this technology into the clinic for the first time."

Prof Chris Mason, an expert on regenerative medicine at University College London, said there was some "beautiful work" coming out of the lab in Cambridge.

"It's a hell of a lot easier to get a blood sample than a high quality skin sample, so that's a big benefit," he said.

"However, induced pluripotent stem cells [those converted from adult cells] are still very new, we need far more experience to totally reprogram a cell in a way we know to be safe."

The British Heart Foundation said these cells had "great potential".

The Medical Research Council said there was "rapid progress" being made in the this field.

From the BBC:

UN internet regulation treaty talks begin in Dubai

By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

A UN agency is trying to calm fears that the internet could be damaged by a conference it is hosting.

Government regulators from 193 countries are in Dubai to revise a wide-ranging communications treaty.

Google has warned the event threatened the "open internet", while the EU said the current system worked, adding: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

But the agency said action was needed to ensure investment in infrastructure to help more people access the net.

"The brutal truth is that the internet remains largely [the] rich world's privilege, " said Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the UN's International Telecommunications Union, ahead of the meeting.

"ITU wants to change that."

Internet governance

The ITU traces its roots back to 1865, pre-dating the United Nations. Back then the focus was on telegrams, but over ensuing decades governments have extended its remit to other communications technologies.

It helped develop the standards that made sure different countries' telephone networks could talk to each other, and continues to allocate global radio spectrum and communication satellite orbits.

The current event - the World Conference on International Telecommunications (Wcit) - marks the first time it has overseen a major overhaul of telecommunication regulations since 1988.

The ITU says there is a need to reflect the "dramatically different" technologies that have become commonplace over the past 24 years.

But the US has said some of the proposals being put forward by other countries are "alarming".

"There have been proposals that have suggested that the ITU should enter the internet governance business," said Terry Kramer, the US's ambassador to Wcit, last week.

"There have been active recommendations that there be an invasive approach of governments in managing the internet, in managing the content that goes via the internet, what people are looking at, what they're saying.

"These fundamentally violate everything that we believe in in terms of democracy and opportunities for individuals, and we're going to vigorously oppose any proposals of that nature."

He added that he was specifically concerned by a proposal by Russia which said member states should have "equal rights to manage the internet" - a move he suggested would open the door to more censorship.

However - as a recent editorial in the Moscow Times pointed out - Russia has already been able to introduce a "black list" of banned sites without needing an international treaty.

The ITU's leader is also playing down suggestions that Russian demands will see him gain powers currently wielded by US-based bodies such as the internet name regulator Icann.

"There is no need for the ITU to take over the internet governance," said Dr Toure following Mr Kramer's comments.

Pay to stream

One of the other concerns raised is that the conference could result in popular websites having to pay a fee to send data along telecom operators' networks.

The European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association (Etno) - which represents companies such as Orange, Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom - has been lobbying governments to introduce what it calls a "quality based" model.

This would see firms face charges if they wanted to ensure streamed video and other quality-critical content download without the risk of problems such as jerky images.

Etno says a new business model is needed to provide service providers with the "incentive to invest in network infrastructure".

A leaked proposal by Cameroon which talks of network operators deserving "full payment" has been interpreted by some as evidence that it is sympathetic to the idea.

Mr Kramer has suggested that "a variety of nations in the Arab states" also supported the idea.

However, the US and EU are against it which should theoretically stop the proposal in its tracks.

The ITU has repeatedly said that there must be common ground, rather than just a majority view, before changes are introduced to the treaty.

"Voting in our jargon means winners and losers, and we cannot afford that," Dr Toure told the BBC.

Rejecting regulation

Such assurances have failed to satisfy everyone.

The EU's digital agenda commissioner, Neelie Kroes, has called into question why the treaty needs to refer to the net.

"The internet works, it doesn't need to be regulated by ITR treaty," she tweeted.

Vint Cerf - the computer scientist who co-designed some of the internet's core underlying protocols and who now acts as Google's chief internet evangelist - has been even more vocal, penning a series of op-ed columns.

"A state-controlled system of regulation is not only unnecessary, it would almost invariably raise costs and prices and interfere with the rapid and organic growth of the internet we have seen since its commercial emergence in the 1990s," he wrote for CNN.

Google itself has also run an "open internet" petition alongside the claim: "Only governments have a voice at the ITU... engineers, companies, and people that build and use the web have no vote."

However, the ITU has pointed out that Google has a chance to put its views forward as part of the US's delegation to the conference.

"They are here, and they're telling everyone that it's a closed society," said Dr Toure when asked about the firm's campaign.

"We will challenge them here again to bring their points on the table. The point that they are bringing - which is internet governance - it's not really a place for discussion [of that] here.

"Therefore we believe they will find themselves in an environment completely different from what they were expecting."

From the BBC:

Theresa May says internet bill critics 'putting politics before lives'

Home Secretary Theresa May has warned that those opposing plans to let police monitor all internet use are "putting politics before people's lives".

The draft Communications Data Bill would mean internet providers having to retain records of all their customers' online activity for 12 months.

Mrs May told The Sun the powers would help police tackle serious organised crime, paedophiles, and terrorists.

Critics call it a "snoopers' charter" bill which infringes civil liberties.

At the moment, the police and intelligence services can get access to information about people's mobile phone use.

The bill would extend those powers to cover email and the internet. The authorities would be able to see details of who communicated with whom, and when and where, but they would not be able to see the content of the message.

Police, the security services, the new National Crime Agency and HM Revenue and Customs would be able to access the data, but the draft Communications Data Bill also gives the Home Secretary the power to extend access to others, such as the UK Border Agency.

Mrs May stressed that the proposal was to store the detail of communications - who talked to who in a Skype internet phone call for example - rather than the content of what was said.

"It is absolutely not government wanting to read everybody's emails - we will not be looking at every web page everybody has looked at," she added.

Mrs May said: "People who say they are against this bill need to look victims of serious crime, terrorism and child sex offences in the eye and tell them why they're not prepared to give the police the powers they need to protect the public.

"Anybody who is against this bill is putting politics before people's lives. We would certainly see criminals going free as a result of this."

There are two parliamentary reports due to be published on the draft bill in the next few days.

Lib Dem sources have told the BBC that party leader Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, might use one of the reports - in which MPs and peers are expected to be critical - as "an opportunity to kill the bill for good".

BBC deputy political editor James Landale said that, in its report, the joint committee on the draft Communications Data Bill would argue that:

• The Home Office has failed to make the case for the new laws, not least by failing to show how the police use existing laws to monitor mobile phone data.
• The bill infringes civil liberties and invades privacy by allowing the police access to a mass of new data without adequate safeguards. In particular, they will argue that in some internet use - particularly social media sites - it is difficult to distinguish between the details of the communication and the actual content of the message.
• The measure would damage British businesses by forcing phone companies and internet service providers to store at huge cost for 12 months masses of new data that they would not otherwise keep.
• The new pool of data would be open to abuse and present a security threat.

From the BBC:

Sir Tim Berners-Lee flags UN net conference concerns

By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

Sir Tim Berners-Lee - inventor of the world wide web - is the latest voice to raise concerns about a meeting of communication tech regulators in Dubai.

He spoke of concerns that some attendees would push for a UN agency to "run the internet" rather than leaving it to groups already "doing a good job".

Internet pioneer Vint Cerf has also highlighted the issue on Google's site.

But the UN agency itself is playing down suggestions of a power-grab.

Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU), said ahead of the event: "There is no need for the ITU to take over the internet governance."

Internet governance

The United Arab Emirates is playing host to 193 countries at World Conference on International Telecommunications (Wcit).

They aim to revise a telecommunications treaty which has not been overhauled since 1988.

The ITU has said there was a need to address the fact technologies like the internet were not properly addressed by the current regulations, and that more efforts must be made to change the fact that "two-thirds of the world's population" did not have access to the net.

Among the proposals being considered is a clause put forward by Russia which says: "Member states shall have equal rights to manage the internet, including in regard to the allotment, assignment and reclamation of internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources and to support for the operation and development of basic internet infrastructure."

This has been interpreted by some as a starting point for domain name regulator Icann, the Internet Engineering Task Force and other organisations that oversee the internet's technical specifications to be forced to be pass at least some of their powers to another body such as the ITU.

Sir Tim is director of a standards body himself - the World Wide Web Consortium. He said that governments can already influence changes but should resist further interference.

"I think it's important that these existing structures continue to be used without any attempt to bypass them," he said.

"These organisations have been around for a number of years and I think it would be a disruptive threat to the stability of the system for people to try to set up alternative organisations to do the standards."

Accelerating access

Sir Tim also indicated that there was no need to create new internet-specific sections to an international treaty in order to improve access.

"It seems that at the moment the growth of the internet is spectacular and the developing countries have the highest growth rate.

"A few years ago we started [World Wide] Web Foundation worrying that connectivity was relevant, but now today connectivity is clearly becoming ubiquitous - we need to look at other concerns such as net neutrality and whether governments spy on the internet and whether they block it.

"A lot of concerns I've heard from people have been that, in fact, countries that want to be able to block the internet and give people within their country a 'secure' view of what's out there would use a treaty at the ITU as a mechanism to do that, and force other countries to fall into line with the blockages that they wanted to put in place."

However, Sir Tim added that resistance to such an idea by other nations would mean the problem could be avoided.

The ITU's leader has said he intends to prevent any measure being put to a vote, and that proposals must be agreed, instead, by consensus.

The US has already made clear that it would block any attempt by Russia or another country to make changes to internet governance.

"We will actively oppose the Russian proposal," said Terry Kramer, the US ambassador to Wcit, last week.

"We have had good working relationships with our Russian colleagues, but the proposal that actually came out, to us, was shocking."

The US is now pressing for there to be no reference to the internet in the treaty.

Human rights

Early discussions at Wcit have included a debate over an internet-related clause championed by Tunisia.

It said the revised treaty should contain a clause committing member states to protecting freedom of expression on the net including "the freedom of online peaceful assembly".

The ITU said the text sparked a "vigorous debate", but was deemed unnecessary since such the issue was already addressed by human rights treaties which take precedence over whatever would ultimately be included in the communications agreement,

The conference continues until 14 December.

From the BBC:

BBC agrees to change 'squeezed' TV credits

The BBC has announced changes to the way it displays a programme's end credits, following pressure from acting union Equity.

It had contacted all the UK's major broadcasters about concerns that credits were being squeezed into small boxes to allow for programme trailers.

Last week, Sky announced changes to its end titles to allow more space.

The BBC has now pledged to make sure at least one episode per series will feature the show's credits in full.

It said it has introduced a range of new commitments in light of Equity's approach, and will now not squeeze the credits for ideally the first or last episode of a drama or comedy series.

The corporation added that while it will continue to promote content during the other episodes it will not do so during broadcasts that pay tribute to people or for productions that "made special use of credits".

A spokeswoman for the BBC said: "Our analysis shows that credit squeezes can be effective in helping audiences to find relevant content, both on TV and on other platforms.

"However, we agree with Equity that we should be careful and sensitive in our use of them, and we have amended our principles with which we plan credit squeezes, restricting them to situations where they are of direct relevance to each programme's audience."

ITV said it has also responded to Equity's concerns, and has "a consistent style guide" designed so that credits "are legible onscreen".

The broadcaster confirmed it has written to Equity to say it is willing to discuss the issue with them.

Equity's research into the subject indicated that 89% of viewers got "very annoyed" by squeezed credits.

The union has campaigned against the practice since 2004, claiming it can damage a performer's future employment prospects.

As reported by The Stage website last week, Sky's own research found three-quarters of its viewers believe that credits are important for actors.

"We spoke to our customers, and their suggestions were instrumental in shaping the changes that we have made to end credits on all our channels," said Sophie Turner Laing, managing director of entertainment, news and broadcast operations at Sky.

Sky's survey also found that 77% are interested in finding out which actors were in the programme they have watched, with 44% saying they want to know who has directed a show.

Equity has said it hopes other broadcasters "will follow suit".

From the BBC:

Npower fined for abandoned calls by Ofcom

Energy company Npower has been fined for making abandoned calls - when residents answer to be greeted by a recorded message.

Regulator Ofcom found that Npower made these calls to 1,756 UK consumers over a seven-week period in early 2011.

It has imposed a fine of £60,000, after the company said it would compensate those affected with a £10 voucher.

Npower said that the cases were "isolated exceptions" and otherwise it had good controls in place.

Automatic calls

Call centres use automated dialling equipment to make dozens of calls at once, but these brought thousands of complaints from people who received repeated silent or abandoned calls when staff were unavailable.

Although the use of automated systems are not banned, companies have been told by Ofcom to employ such practices more carefully.

In February 2011, the maximum fine for regularly making these silent or abandoned calls was raised to £2m.

But Ofcom also conducted an investigation into calls made by Npower between 1 February and 21 March.

The regulator said that Npower's breach of the rules was "at the lower end of seriousness".

However, it also found that marketing content was played in 1,906 abandoned calls.

"Our rules are there to protect consumers from suffering annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety from abandoned calls," said Claudio Pollack, of Ofcom.

"Organisations using call centres must comply with the rules or face the consequences."

A spokesman for Npower said: "We are sorry that on eight occasions in 2011, we made a number of abandoned calls in breach of our obligations.

"It is our responsibility to ensure that we operate in accordance with Ofcom's rules. We have good controls in place and believe that these instances were isolated exceptions. However, we have addressed the issues raised by Ofcom, which it acknowledges."

Barclaycard received the biggest penalty for abandoned calls, allowed under the old rules, of £50,000 in September 2008.

From the BBC:

UK government condemned on net address shift

A body set up to get the UK moving to the net's new addressing system has been shut down in protest at official indifference to its work.

6UK was set up to advise ISPs and firms about the move from version 4 of the addressing scheme to version 6.

But 6UK has been wound up after its board realised its work was futile without official backing.

The indifference means the UK is among the nations that have done the least to move to V6, it said.

Tech evangelism

"The biggest organisation we needed to join 6UK was the government," said Philip Sheldrake, former director of the non-profit body.

Although the UK government handed over £20,000 ($32,000) to get 6UK going in 2010, said Mr Sheldrake, support had been scant ever since. For instance, he said, nothing had been done to change official procurement rules to mandate the new protocol which would have had a significant effect on adoption.

"There's no material incentive for any organisation to go for IPv6," he said.

The internet grew up using an addressing scheme called IP Version 4 (IPv4).

In the 1970s when the net was being built the 4.3 billion IP addresses allowed by IPv4 were thought to be enough. However, the net's rapid growth has quickly exhausted this pool and led to the creation of IPv6 which has an effectively limitless store of addresses to call on. Europe effectively ran out of IPv4 addresses in September 2012.

Disrupt services

Official indifference was revealed, said Mr Sheldrake, by the fact that no government website sat on an IPv6 address.

By contrast, said Mr Sheldrake, countries such as the US had boosted adoption by mandating IPv6 compliance in contracts to force suppliers to work with it. The one factor that made a difference to a nation's adoption of V6 was government involvement, he said.

UK businesses and competitiveness would suffer, he said, as the world moved on with IPv6 but Britain stuck with V4. It was possible to translate between the two protocols, said Mr Sheldrake, but this could disrupt many services, such as Skype, that rely on using the same protocol across the entire net.

Government involvement with IPv6 sat at odds, he said, with its enthusiasm for other digital initiatives such as Tech City.

"If you were going to evangelise Tech City and the UK as a digital hub to the world you probably want to be building that on the modern internet protocol," he said.

A government spokeswoman said the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and the Department of Culture "remain committed to the development of an open internet and regard the use of IPv6 as one of the technologies that is likely to make this possible".

She added: "The expectation was that it would be able to find wider funding and create a central point for the stimulation of IPv6 in the UK.

"We regret that this has not happened. We will continue to explore with industry and other partners the need for IPv6 and relevant ways in which we may be able to assist."

Mentioned on the BBC Radio 4 news this morning:

The hum that helps to fight crime

By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News

A rape victim has come forward to the police. She says she has confronted her attacker and has secretly recorded him admitting his guilt.

A suspected terrorist has been taped planning a deadly attack, and the police want to use this evidence in court. Or someone has been captured on CCTV threatening an assault.

Increasingly, recordings like these are playing a role in criminal investigations.

But how can the police be sure that the audio evidence is genuine, that it has not been tampered with or cleverly edited?

Forensic scientists have come up with the answer: they can authenticate these recordings with the help of a hum.

Electric find

For the last seven years, at the Metropolitan Police forensic lab in south London, audio specialists have been continuously recording the sound of mains electricity.

It is an all pervasive hum that we normally cannot hear. But boost it a little, and a metallic and not very pleasant buzz fills the air.

"The power is sent out over the national grid to factories, shops and of course our homes. Normally this frequency, known as the mains frequency, is about 50Hz," explains Dr Alan Cooper, a senior digital forensic practitioner at the Met Police.

Any digital recording made anywhere near an electrical power source, be it plug socket, light or pylon, will pick up this noise and it will be embedded throughout the audio.

This buzz is an annoyance for sound engineers trying to make the highest quality recordings. But for forensic experts, it has turned out to be an invaluable tool in the fight against crime.

While the frequency of the electricity supplied by the national grid is about 50Hz, if you look at it over time, you can see minute fluctuations.

"It's because the supply and demand is unpredictable," says Dr Cooper.

If millions of people suddenly switch on their kettle after watching their favourite soap, the demand for electricity may outstrip the supply, and the generators will pump out more electricity, and the frequency will go up.

"But when supply is greater than demand, the generators will slow down and the frequency will go down," explains Dr Cooper.

"The grid operators will try and compensate for this, but you can sometimes see some very significant fluctuations."

Silent witness

A decade ago, a Romanian audio specialist Dr Catalan Grigoras, now director of the National Center for Media Forensics at the University of Colorado, Denver, made a discovery: that the pattern of these random changes in frequency is unique over time.

By itself, this might be an interesting electrical curiosity. But when you take into account that most digital recordings are also embedded with this hum, it becomes a game changer.

Comparing the unique pattern of the frequencies on an audio recording with a database that has been logging these changes for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year provides a digital watermark: a date and time stamp on the recording.

Philip Harrison, from JP French Associates, another forensic audio laboratory that has been logging the hum for several years, says: "Even if [the hum] is picked up at a very low level that you cannot hear, we can extract this information."

It is a technique known as Electric Network Frequency (ENF) analysis, and it is helping forensic scientists to separate genuine, unedited recordings from those that have been tampered with.

Dr Harrison said: "If we have we can extract [the hum] and compare it with the database, if it is a continuous recording, it will all match up nicely.

"If we've got some breaks in the recording, if it's been stopped and started, the profiles won't match or there will be a section missing. Or if it has come from two different recordings looking as if it is one, we'll have two different profiles within that one recording."

In the UK, because one national grid supplies the country with electricity, the fluctuations in frequency are the same the country over. So it does not matter if the recording has been made in Aberdeen or Southampton, the comparison will work.

Elsewhere around the world, it is slightly more complicated because some countries can have two or more grids. But in these cases, all it takes is for the hum to be continuously logged on each power system and for a recording to be compared against each of them.

Dr Harrison said: "This has really been a key tool in the box to help us with this kind of work."

Crucial in court

Recently, Dr Cooper was called as a witness on ENF in court for the first time.

A gang were accused of selling weapons, and undercover police had recorded an arms deal. But the defence claimed that the police had tampered with the recording and had edited together several separate recordings together to make their case.

Dr Cooper said: "The defence made the allegations and we were asked if we could authenticate the recordings.

"We carried out various forms of analysis, including the mains hum frequency analysis and we found some good quality signals, and that the alleged date and times of the recordings matched with the extracted data from the recordings themselves."

The analysis revealed that the recordings had not been tampered with - and this proved crucial to the trial. The trio - Hume Bent, Carlos Moncrieffe and Christopher McKenzie - were found guilty and jailed for a total of 33 years for being involved in the supply of firearms.

The Met Police were the first to automate the system, and Dr Cooper says the technique is now starting to be used widely by this force, as well as others around the world. But even with advances like this, he admits there are always new challenges ahead.

He says: "Digital forensics is constantly in flux, and the technology is changing every day. Every time a new format comes out, we need we need to be able to extract the data from those recordings and find different techniques to find out more about them"

Frontiers: Forensic Phonetics is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday 12 December at 2100 GMT

From the BBC:

Tallow Candle: Hans Christian Andersen's 'first work'

An early work by Hans Christian Andersen has been found at the bottom of a box near the Danish fairy tale writer's home city, experts say.

The Tallow Candle is a short story about a revered candle that becomes grimy and neglected until its inner beauty is recognised and ignited.

The ink-written manuscript is dedicated: "To Mme Bunkeflod, from her devoted HC Andersen".

Experts say it was probably written by the Ugly Duckling author in the 1820s.

Mrs Bunkeflod is thought to be a widow whom the writer visited, read to and borrowed books from as a child.

Experts told Danish daily Politiken the script is likely the copy of an original manuscript that has since been lost.

The newspaper has translated and published a version of the story in English.

Shoemaker's son

Historian Esben Brage made the chance finding in a filing box at the National Archives of Funen in October and experts have since scrutinised the copy of the 700-word manuscript.

Experts say the story's simplistic style is not on a par with Andersen's elegantly written mature works, suggesting it was written during his time at a grammar school in the mid-1820s.

Born in Odense in 1805, the son of a shoemaker and a washerwoman concentrated on poetry before his first book of fairy tales was published in 1835.

Many of Andersen's most famous works, such as the Emperor's New Clothes and the Little Mermaid, focus on perceptions of wealth and beauty - themes touched on in The Tallow Candle.

Andersen expert Ejnar Stig Askgaard described the discovery as "sensational".

"I have no doubt that it is Christian Andersen who wrote it," he said.

A dedication thought to have been written on the copy later in blue ink reads: "To P Plum from his friend Bunkeflod."

The Plum and Bunkeflod families were close friends, and Hans Christian Andersen had a close relationship with Mme Bunkeflod, Politiken reported.

Before he died in 1875, Andersen wrote hundreds of fairy tales which have since been translated into more than 100 languages.

From the BBC:

US, UK and Canada refuse to sign UN's internet treaty

The US, Canada and UK have refused to sign an international communications treaty at a conference in Dubai.

The three countries had objected to calls for all states to have equal rights to the governance of the internet.

Russia, China and Saudi Arabia were among those pushing for the change.

It marks a setback for the UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) which had said it was sure it could deliver consensus.

"It's with a heavy heart and a sense of missed opportunities that the US must communicate that it's not able to sign the agreement in the current form," said Terry Kramer the US ambassador to the World Conference on International Telecommunications (Wcit).

"The internet has given the world unimaginable economic and social benefit during these past 24 years."

Negotiators from Denmark, the Czech Republic, Sweden, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Costa Rica and Kenya have said they would need to consult with their national governments about how to proceed and would also not be able to sign the treaty as planned on Friday.

Censorship claims

The ITU had organised the 12-day conference in order to revise a communications treaty last overhauled 24 years ago.

It said the document would help nations co-ordinate efforts against spam and widen access to the web.

However, much of the discussions ended up focusing on whether or not countries should have equal rights to the development of the internet's technical foundations.

In particular many attendees believed it was an anachronism that the US government got to decide which body should regulate the net's address system as a legacy of its funding for Arpanet - a precursor to the internet which helped form its technical core.

However, the US said this allowed it to ensure that technical experts could make "agile, rapid-fire decisions" about the net's development as part of multi-stakeholder organisations.

It added that other references to net might also be used to legitimise censorship and other interference in the operation of internet service providers (ISPs) and cloud-based operations, such as Google and Facebook.

Its view was supported by the internet and web pioneers Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee who warned any changes posed a "disruptive threat to the stability of the system".

Russian proposals

A proposal from Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Sudan calling for equal rights for all governments to manage "internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources" was eventually shelved.

But there was fresh controversy on Wednesday night after an alternative non-binding resolution was debated which suggested the UN agency's leadership should "continue to take the necessary steps for ITU to play an active and constructive role in the development of broadband and the multi-stakeholder model of the internet."

This was opposed by the US and European nations who repeated their argument that the treaty's regulations should not stretch to internet governance.

As debate continued into the early hours of Thursday morning the conference's chairman, Mohammed Nasser al-Ghanim asked for a "feel of the room" noting afterwards that the resolution had majority support, while stressing that this was not a formal "vote".

Matters were also complicated by an African bloc of countries calling for a paragraph to be added to the treaty's preamble stating that: "These regulations recognise the right of access of member states to international telecommunication services."

The US and its allies suggested this as an attempt to extend the treaty's regulations to cover internet governance and content.

'Bad agreement'

After a break for sleep, Iran called for a vote on the African proposal which was carried by 77 votes to 33. This was in spite of the ITU's earlier pledge that disputed issues would only be resolved by consensus and not a majority vote.

The organisation's secretary-general attempted to salvage discussions, but the US, Canada and UK said they could no longer ratify the treaty.

"My delegation came to work for revised international telecommunication regulations, but not at any cost," said the head of the UK delegation Simon Towle.

"We prefer no resolution on the internet at all, and I'm extremely concerned that the language just adopted opens the possibility of internet and content issues."

Despite this setback, the ITU's secretary-general Dr Hamadoun Toure insisted that those countries which did sign the treaty would benefit from other achievements including " increased transparency in international mobile roaming charges and competition".

He stressed that it was his belief that - despite what others had indicated - the treaty did not cover content issues.

From the BBC:

Reservoirs can make local flooding worse, says study

By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News

Researchers say that large man-made reservoirs can increase the intensity of rainfall and could affect flood defences.

The scientists found that rain patterns around bodies of water in Chile were much higher than in similar areas without them.

This "lake effect" could overwhelm flood defences which are often built without taking it into account.

The study has been accepted for publication in the journal Hydrology.

Stormy edge

Previous research in this field has focused on the impact of dams on local climates. There is evidence that standing bodies like reservoirs and lakes can alter rain patterns by increasing the amount of water that evaporates.

Some experts believe that you also get circulating air patterns in the atmosphere above the boundary between the water and the land and this can initiate thunderstorms and showers.

The impact can be significant. One study showed that extreme precipitation increased by 4% per year after dams were built.

In this latest work, researchers from the University of Talca, Chile, examined data from 50 rain gauges near reservoirs in different parts of the country.

Chile has a large variety of climates ranging from areas that get 0mm of annual rainfall to places that get more that 4,500mm. The scientists found that the most intense rainfall was measured at weather stations located near water bodies, especially in drier climates.

One of the authors, Dr Pablo Garcia-Chevesich from the University of Arizona told BBC News that the work had important implications for flood defences.

"If you install a water reservoir that will change things totally and that will lead to flooding," he said.

"Engineers get fired when there's flooding because they didn't do a good design, but in reality they did good work but someone else installed a water reservoir and the climate changed."

"The bigger the water body, the greater the effect."

Dr Garcia-Chevesich said this area of research was controversial because changing the design of flood defences was very expensive.

Dam boosters

Other scientists took a more measured view of the study.

Dr Faisal Hossain, from Tennessee Technological University, said the Chilean study was purely observational and that while the lake effect changed rainfall patterns, the jury was still out on whether it increased or decreased the amounts.

However, he said that he was hoping to bring the research to the attention of dam builders around the world.

"We have modified the weather patterns in such a way that we didn't anticipate before building these reservoirs, and yes in the global context it might have serious ramifications," he said.

Prof Richard Harding from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) said several studies had now pointed to the impact of reservoirs particularly in dry areas.

"The physics says that it will happen, but I'm struggling a little to know how big an impact it is, and quite whether it is strong enough to change the design of flood defences," he said.

Dr Harding suggested that the new study might provide ammunition for those who oppose the building of large-scale new reservoirs.

The authors argue that they want engineers and designers to take this new work into account in planning new flood barriers.

"In the US, they are very rigorous about taking climate change into account when talking about storm water management design," said Dr Garcia-Chevesich, "but this is new and should be taken into account too."

From the BBC:

Nasa to test space-sleep colour-changing lights

Nasa is to test colour-changing lights on the International Space Station (ISS) as part of efforts to help astronauts on board sleep.

The US space agency will initially swap a fluorescent panel with a solid-state lighting module (SSLM) containing LEDs which produces a blue, whitish or red-coloured light depending on the time.

It says the move may help combat insomnia which can make depression, sickness and mistakes more likely.

The test is due to take place in 2016.

News site Space.com reported that the equipment is being made by Boeing and the project has a $11.2m (£6.9m) budget.

Body clock

Studies on Earth suggest humans and other creatures follow what is known as a circadian rhythm - a 24-hour biological cycle involving cell regeneration, urine production and other functions critical to health.

Research indicates that it is regulated by a group of cells in a portion of the brain called the hypothalamus which respond to light information sent by the eye's optic nerve, which in turn controls hormones, body temperature and other functions than influence whether people feel sleepy or wide awake.

The aim of the experiment is to simulate a night-day cycle to minimise sleep disruption caused by the loss of its natural equivalent on the station.

When the SSLMs are coloured blue the aim is to stimulate melanopsin - a pigment found in cells in the eye's retina which send nerve impulses to parts of the brain thought to make a person feel alert.

Blue light is also believed to suppress melatonin - a hormone made by the brain's pineal gland which makes a person feel sleepy when its levels rise in their blood.

By switching from blue to red light - via an intermediary white stage - this process should be reversed, encouraging a feeling of sleepiness.

Nasa has previously warned sleep problems among its crews on other missions were also common.

"On some space shuttle missions up to 50% of the crew take sleeping pills, and, over all, nearly half of all medication used in orbit is intended to help astronauts sleep," it said in 2001.

"Even so, space travellers average about two hours sleep less each night in space than they do on the ground."

Evidence from Earth

Derk-Jan Dijk, professor of sleep and physiology at the University of Surrey, said Nasa's test reflects the latest findings closer to home.

"It hasn't been until recently that we started to realise that artificial light, as we see it or are exposed to it in the evening, will have an effect on our alertness and subsequent sleep.

"It turns out there are receptors in the eye which are tuned toward blue light. Adding blue light to artificial lights visible during the day can actually help us to be alert, but if there is too much blue light in the artificial lights at night that may disrupt sleep.

"So, varying the spectral composition of light does make sense from a circadian perspective, and better regulating artificial sleep-wake cycles may indeed benefit astronauts' sleep in space."

Nasa adds there could be spin-off benefits for the population at large.

"A significant proportion of the global population suffers from chronic sleep loss," said Daniel Shultz at the Kennedy Space Center.

"By refining multipurpose lights for astronauts safety, health and well-being in spaceflight, the door is opened for new lighting strategies that can be evolved for use on Earth."

From the BBC:

Tau Ceti's planets nearest around single, Sun-like star

The nearest single Sun-like star to the Earth hosts five planets - one of which is in the "habitable zone" where liquid water can exist, astronomers say.

Tau Ceti's planetary quintet - reported in an online paper that will appear in Astronomy and Astrophysics - was found in existing planet-hunting data.

The study's refined methods of sifting through data should help find even more far-flung worlds.

The star now joins Alpha Centauri as a nearby star known to host planets.

In both those cases, the planets were found not by spying them through a telescope but rather by measuring the subtle effects they have on their host stars' light.

In the gravitational dance of a planet around a star, the planet does most of the moving. But the star too is tugged slightly to and fro as the planet orbits, and these subtle movements of the star show up as subtle shifts in the colour of the star's light we see from Earth.

This "radial velocity" measurement is a tricky one; stars' light changes also for a range of other reasons, and requires picking out the specifically planetary component from all this "noise".

Now, Hugh Jones of the University of Hertfordshire and colleagues have refined their "noise modelling" in order to subtract it, and thereby see the smallest signals hiding in the data - starting with Tau Ceti.

"It's a star on which we have a lot of data - an order of magnitude more data than we have for pretty much any other star," Prof Jones told BBC News.

"It's a good test case for how low can we go, what size of signals can we pick up."

In the noise

The team started with data from three planet-hunting missions: Harps, AAPS, and HiRes, all of which had data on Tau Ceti.

The trick to honing the technique was to put in "fake planets" - to add signals into the messy data that planets should add - and find ways to reduce the noise until the fake planets became more and more visible in the data.

"Putting all that together, we optimised a noise-modelling strategy which allows us to recover our fake signals - but in the process of doing that, we actually saw that we were finding signals as well," Prof Jones said - actual planets.

The quintet includes planets between two and six times the Earth's mass, with periods ranging from 14 to 640 days. One of them, dubbed HD 10700e, lies about half as far from Tau Ceti as the Earth is from the Sun - and because Tau Ceti is slightly smaller and dimmer than our Sun, that puts the planet in the so-called habitable zone.

It is increasingly clear that in existing data from radial velocity measurements there may be evidence of many more planets.

On Monday, Philip Gregory at the University of British Columbia in Canada posted an as-yet unpublished paper to the arXiv repository, claiming to have seen three planets in the habitable zone of Gliese 667C, one of three stars in a triple-star system, 22 light-years away.

It is also clear that in almost every direction we look and in every way that we look, there are planets around stars near and far - the catalogue currently stands at 854 confirmed planets, and is growing with every new publication.

From the BBC:

Fighting may have shaped evolution of human hand

Fighting may have shaped the evolution of the human hand, according to a new study by a US team.

The University of Utah researchers used instruments to measure the forces and acceleration when martial artists hit a punch bag.

They found that the structure of the fist provides support that increases the ability of the knuckles to transmit "punching" force.

Details of the research have been published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

"We asked the question: 'can you strike harder with a fist than with an open palm'," co-author Prof David Carrier told BBC News.

"We were surprised because the fist strikes were not more forceful than the strikes with the palm. In terms of the work on the bag there is really no difference."

Of course, the surface that strikes the target with a fist is smaller, so there is more stress from a fist strike.

"The force per area is higher in a fist strike and that is what causes localised tissue damage," said Prof Carrier.

"There is a performance advantage in that regard. But the real focus of the study was whether the proportions of the human hand allow buttressing (support)."

The team found that making a clenched fist did indeed provide protective buttressing for the delicate bones of the hand. Making a fist increased the stiffness of the second meta-carpo-phalangeal, or MCP, joint (these joints are the knuckles visible when the hand is clenched as a fist) by a factor of four.

It also doubled the ability of the proximal phalanges (the bones of the fingers that articulate with the MCP joints) to transmit a punching force.

Dual use

In their paper, Prof Carrier and Michael H Morgan from the University of Utah's school of medicine, point out that the human hand has also been shaped by the need for manual dexterity. But they say that a number of different hand proportions are compatible with an enhanced ability to manipulate objects.

"There may, however, be only one set of skeletal proportions that allows the hand to function both as a mechanism for precise manipulation and as a club for striking," the researchers write.

"Ultimately, the evolutionary significance of the human hand may lie in its remarkable ability to serve two seemingly incompatible, but intrinsically human, functions."

Prof Carrier commented: "The question for me is 'why wasn't this discussed 30, 40 years ago.' As far as I know it isn't in the literature."

Asked whether the idea that aggression may have played a key role in shaping the human body might previously have been unpalatable to researchers, Prof Carrier explained: "I think we're more in that situation now than we were in the past.

"I think there is a lot of resistance, maybe more so among academics than people in general - resistance to the idea that, at some level humans are by nature aggressive animals. I actually think that attitude, and the people who have tried to make the case that we don't have a nature - those people have not served us well.

"I think we would be better off if we faced the reality that we have these strong emotions and sometimes they prime us to behave in violent ways. I think if we acknowledged that we'd be better able to prevent violence in future."

From the BBC:

Law relaxed on digital copying

Making digital copies of music, films and other copyrighted material for personal use is to be made legal for the first time under government plans.

It has previously been illegal in the UK to rip songs from a CD to a digital player or transfer eBooks, music, films and games from one device to another.

But people will still not be allowed to share the copies with others.

Business Secretary Vince Cable said the move was "not only common sense but good business sense".

"Bringing the law into line with ordinary people's reasonable expectations will boost respect for copyright, on which our creative industries rely," he said.

"We feel we have struck the right balance between improving the way consumers benefit from copyright works they have legitimately paid for, boosting business opportunities and protecting the rights of creators."

But musicians and songwriters complained that they will lose out.

The Musicians' Union and British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors said all other European countries with a similar law also have some form of levy on items like blank CDs and media players to compensate creators.

Musicians' Union general secretary John Smith said: "We feel strongly that the lack of fair compensation will significantly disadvantage creators and performers in relation to the vast majority of their EU counterparts.

"Why would the UK government want to discriminate against its own creators, particularly since the creative economy is one of the consistent areas of economic growth?"

The change in the law will also make it easier for teachers to use copyright materials on interactive whiteboards, for people to make parodies of copyrighted works and for writers to quote other sources.

From the BBC:

Boeing uses potatoes instead of people to test wi-fi

US planemaker Boeing used an unusual substitute for passengers to test its in-flight wi-fi system - potatoes.

Passenger seats on a decommissioned plane were loaded with huge sacks of the tubers for several days as signal strengths were checked.

The company's researchers say that potatoes "interact" with electronic signals in a similar way to humans.

The technique also took advantage of the fact that spuds - unlike humans - never get bored.

Boeing's engineers did a number of tests to ensure that passengers would get the strongest possible wi-fi signal while in the air, all while meeting safety standards that protect against interference with an aircraft's electrical systems.

Wireless signals fluctuate randomly in the enclosed space of an aeroplane cabin as people move about.

This means that signal distribution is uneven throughout the cabin, with weaker and stronger connectivity in different seats.

"You want your laptop to work anywhere it's located on your seat, [but] there can be significant signal changes just due to the location of the laptop," said Boeing engineer Dennis Lewis.

To test the signal distribution, the firm turned to spuds instead of human test subjects, filling the seats with 20,000lbs (9,000kg) of potatoes in sacks.

According to Boeing, potatoes' "interactions" with electronic signals mimic those of a human body, making them "the perfect stand-in for people who would otherwise have had to sit motionless for days while the data was gathered".

The UK Potato Council said many people underestimated the humble potato's alternative uses.

"[The examples are] in paper and ink manufacturing, potato starch is used in clothing to strengthen the fibres so they don't break during weaving, and for sweetening - glucose can be extracted from potato starch," said the council's spokeswoman.

"For beauty and sores - potatoes have calming, decongestant and astringent properties and raw potatoes can calm tired eyes, potato as alcohol, and potatoes can produce electricity."

Frederic Rosseneu of the European Potato Trade Association Europatat said the organisation was "looking forward to other experiments in which spuds can help to make our lives more convenient".

From the BBC:

Sales shoppers set online 'Boxing Day record'

By Kevin Peachey Personal finance reporter, BBC News

Record numbers visited UK retail websites on Boxing Day, with analysts suggesting shoppers are also using the internet to identify bargains.

Information service Experian said UK consumers made 113 million visits to retailers' websites during 26 December.

The number of visitors to the High Street on the same day was up 0.64% on last year's Boxing Day trade, according to Experian.

Some big name retailers started their online sales on Christmas Day.

Activity

UK internet users made 84 million visits to retail websites on Christmas Eve and 107 million visits on Christmas Day, up 86% and 71% respectively compared to the same days in December 2011, according to Experian.

The Boxing Day level - 113 million visits - was 17% up on the same day in 2011. Typically, during the year, there is an average of about 70 million visits on Mondays - the busiest day of the week for online shopping.

"The UK sales creep continues to advance so that now the post-Christmas sales are starting before Christmas," said James Murray, digital insight manager at Experian.

"Five years ago we called it the January sales, before it became the Boxing Day sales, now retailers have to call it the winter sales as discounting starts earlier to encourage higher spending."

Shoppers headed back to the High Street on Thursday, with large department stores such as John Lewis throwing open their doors for clearance sales.

Yet, retail consultants have said that many people heading out to the shops will have already browsed online to choose the items they want.

The squeeze on family finances is likely to keep the lid on retail sales, especially on big ticket items.

A lack of activity in the housing market is also reducing demand for some household items that might have been replaced as people move home.

However, some positive news in employment levels means that some stores could still record a decent level of sales in the significant post-Christmas sales period.

Experian Footfall said that there was "quiet optimism" on the High Street with the number of shoppers up slightly on 26 December, compared with the same day in 2011.

Online research

The growth of the internet means that the peak in sales might already have taken place.

Mr Murray, of Experian, said that 26 December was traditionally the single biggest shopping day of the year online.

And now, shoppers are using digital devices such as tablets and smartphones to search for bargains - then only travel to those specific shops to buy those items.

"The internet has been a huge factor in retail all year, and has an influence on the High Street with shoppers doing more research beforehand," said Matt Piner, founder of retail research agency Conlumino.

He said items such as laptops and furniture in particular were identified by shoppers during online browsing, rather than in a store.

'Cautious'

John Lewis, which starts its sale in department stores on Thursday, said it had seen notable activity during its online clearance sale. That started at 1700GMT on 24 December.

On Christmas Day, the department store said online sales peaked late in the evening. Items that proved popular included electrical items, sheets and pillowcases, luxury towels and candles.

Analysts said the departure of some high-profile names from the High Street had helped some of the remaining department stores. However, many had targeted "cautious" shoppers with discounts in the run-up to Christmas, according to Rahul Sharma, of Neev Capital, a retail consultancy.

He said that shoppers were offered discounts of 20% to 30% in the build up to Christmas, to tempt them into buying items for themselves, as well as presents.

This meant that clearance sales might be muted this year, with many of the items that stores wanted to shift already having been sold.

Predictions

Analysts have suggested that DIY and gardening will see the strongest performance in the retail sector in 2013, compared with 2012.

Poor weather in the past 12 months meant that sales have been low. This, together with homeowners improving homes ready to go on the market, should lead to a rebound in the coming year, according to Verdict and SAS UK.

The groups predicted that spending on food was likely to raise roughly in line with inflation.

However, they say that music and video spending will be hit the hardest, with a predicted 6.3% fall compared with 2012, owing to online streaming and cheaper internet prices.

The amount people spent online was expected to account for 12% of total retail spending, they added.

"UK retailing is set for another year of tough trading," said Maureen Hinton, of Verdict.

From the BBC:

Kinder children are more popular

By Victoria Gill BBC reporter

Performing deliberate acts of kindness makes pre-teen children more popular with their peers, say scientists.

A team led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside, "assigned" children three acts of kindness each week for four weeks.

After the four weeks, children were happier and more liked by classmates.

The researchers say than encouraging such simple "positive acts" could help children to get along with classmates and even prevent instances of bullying.

The findings are published in the open access journal Plos One.

Cuddling and cleaning

Working with 400 school children aged between nine and 11, the team assigned whole classrooms either to perform and note down three kind acts per week or - as a control group - to keep a diary of three locations they visited each week.

The kind acts were not necessarily directed towards their classmates. Some examples of the things children reported were: "Gave my mom a hug when she was stressed by her job", "gave someone some of my lunch," and "vacuumed the floor".

"Before the four weeks, we had each student circle [the names] of students from their classroom who they would like to be in school activities with," explained the lead researcher, Kristin Layous from UC Riverside's department of psychology.

The children were asked to repeat this same "nomination process" at the end of four weeks.

"Both conditions - kindness and comparison - received more nominations from their classmates after the four weeks were over," explained Dr Layous, but students in the kindness [group] gained significantly more nominations than the [other group].

"The most interesting finding to me is that a simple positive activity can promote positive relationships among peers," said Dr Layous.

She suggested that by reinforcing social connections between children in this simple way, schools could help to combat bullying.

"I was not completely surprised that students increased in happiness, because we have found the same effects in adults," said the researcher.

"[But] I was surprised that a simple activity could change the dynamics of a well-established classroom.

"This study was conducted in the spring, so students had already known each other all year. For them to nominate more peers at the end of a four-week activity period is promising."

BBC to be clearer about wildlife footage on Africa show

The new BBC wildlife series Africa will make it clear when animals have been filmed under controlled conditions.

The move comes a year after an episode of Frozen Planet, featuring a polar bear with her cubs, was criticised.

Some shots in that programme, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, were filmed in a Dutch zoo, but many viewers assumed footage came from the Arctic.

The producers of Africa said they felt it "appropriate to be more explicit" about the origins of such sequences.

"We feel it is important to maintain trust and credibility with the audience," series producer James Honeyborne told the Radio Times.

"What's important to us is to be able to share great moments of animal nature and some controlled filming allows us to do that."

The BBC denied misleading Frozen Planet viewers in an episode broadcast on BBC One in November 2011.

It showed polar bear cubs in a den with their mother, with many people assuming the young animals were born and filmed in the Arctic.

But the cubs were actually in a Dutch animal park, as revealed in behind-the-scenes footage on the show's website.

"After Frozen Planet, research revealed audiences were interested in the variety of filming techniques but did not want to be misled in commentary," a BBC spokesman said.

"This is why the BBC has decided to flag up a number of controlled sequences within the commentary."

Viewers will be able to go to the website after the programme has been on TV to see how scenes were filmed.

Africa, also narrated by Sir David Attenborough, was filmed over four years.

It explores the whole of the continent and features meerkats being outsmarted by birds, as well as battling giraffes.

Africa begins on BBC One on 2 January.

From the BBC:

LG launches first next-generation OLED 55in television

LG has launched a 55in (140cm) OLED TV - kickstarting a battle over the next-generation of high-quality screens.

OLED - which means organic light-emitting diode - is more energy efficient than LCD (liquid crystal display) and plasma-based alternatives.

LG's model will be sold in South Korea first with other markets, including Europe, to follow thereafter.

Both LG and Samsung announced 55in OLEDs last year, but LG is the first to make its available.

The firms showcased their televisions at last January's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, but until now neither company had managed to get a product to market.

LG's headstart on its rival helped give it a 5.4% share price boost on Wednesday.

The 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels) OLED television will sell for 11 million won ($10,300; £6,300). Analysts said the technology was unlikely to become more affordable until at least 2015 - but that this latest release was more about cementing LG's position as a market leader.

That said, global sales of OLED televisions are expected to grow to 1.7 million by 2014, according to research firm DisplaySearch.

Bendy

OLED screens have been touted as the successor to the popular liquid crystal displays (LCD).

The technology allows for the display of darker and deeper blacks, and can be made thinner than competing display methods.

Smaller OLED screens are already in mass distribution. Samsung uses the technology in its smartphones, and Sony's PlayStation Vita handheld console also utilises the thin, light technology.

Many predict that OLED screens will allow for the development of a new generation of "bendy" gadgets, some of which are expected to be unveiled over the course of the year.

But larger OLED screens have proven difficult to manufacture due mainly to cost and reliability constraints.

Another technology, known as 4K, has also been given a lot of attention from manufacturers.

Dubbed "Ultra HD", 4K offers 8 million pixels per frame - four times the resolution of 1080p high-definition displays - making it particularly well suited for extra large screens. 110in (279cm) models are expected to be put on show at CES next week.

Existing 4K TV sets are LCD-based. But according to some purists, OLED offers a richer quality display so might be the better option for 55in screens.

From the BBC:

Gamers hired by father to 'kill' son in online games

A man in China hired virtual "assassins" to hunt down his son in online video games and kill off his avatar, according to local media.

The man, named by the Kotako East blog as Mr Feng, was concerned about the amount of time his 23-year-old unemployed son was spending online.

He hoped his actions would deter his son from playing the games, he is reported to have said.

His son eventually asked one of the gamers why they kept targeting him.

"It's not going to do much for family relations," Prof Mark Griffiths, a gambling and addictions expert at Nottingham Trent University told the BBC.

"I've never heard of that kind of intervention before, but I don't think these top-down approaches work. Most excessive game playing is usually a symptom of an underlying problem."

Prof Griffiths said he heard from many parents who were worried about their children's gaming habits but often it was not an addiction.

"I've spent 25 years studying excessive video game playing," he said.

"I've come across very excessive players - playing for 10 to 14 hours a day - but for a lot of these people it causes no detrimental problems if they are not employed, aren't in relationships and don't have children.

"It's not the time you spend doing something, it's the impact it has on your life."

Father and son are said to have reconciled but World of Warcraft expert Olivia Grace said she did not think Mr Feng's actions would necessarily act as a deterrent.

"Being killed by someone happens all the time," she said.

"People are just like that online."

From the BBC:

Science puts wrinkled fingers to the test

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

Science may be getting closer to explaining those prune-like fingers and toes we all get when we sit in a hot bath too long.

UK researchers from Newcastle University have confirmed wet objects are easier to handle with wrinkled fingers than with dry, smooth ones.

They suggest our ancestors may have evolved the creases as they foraged for food in wet vegetation or in streams.

Their experiments are reported in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

These involved asking volunteers to pick up marbles immersed in a bucket of water with one hand and then passing them through a small slot to be deposited by the other hand in a second container.

Volunteers with wrinkled fingers routinely completed the task faster than their smooth-skinned counterparts.

The team found there was no advantage from ridged fingers when moving dry objects. This suggests that the wrinkles serve the specific function of improving our grip on objects under water or when dealing with wet surfaces in general.

For a long time, it was assumed that the wrinkles were simply the result of the skin swelling in water, but recent investigations have actually shown the furrows to be caused by the blood vessels constricting in reaction to the water, which in turn is a response controlled by the body's sympathetic nervous system.

That an active system of regulation is at work led scientists into thinking there must be some deeper evolutionary justification for the ridges.

"If wrinkled fingers were just the result of the skin swelling as it took up water, it could still have a function but it wouldn't need to," said Dr Tom Smulders, from Newcastle's Centre for Behaviour and Evolution.

"Whereas, if the nervous system is actively controlling this behaviour under some circumstances and not others, it seems less of a leap to assume there must be a function for it, and that evolution has selected it. And evolution wouldn't have selected it unless it conferred some sort of advantage," he told BBC News.

US-based researchers were the first to propose that the wrinkles might act like the tread on tyres, and even demonstrated how the patterns in the skin resembled those of run-off channels seen on the sides of hills.

Wet trees

What the Newcastle team has now done is confirm that prune-like fingers are indeed better at gripping wet objects.

"We have tested the first prediction of the hypothesis - that handling should be improved," Dr Smulders said.

"What we haven't done yet is show why - to see if the wrinkles remove the water, or whether it's some other feature of those wrinkles such as a change in their stickiness or plasticity, or something else. The next thing will be to measure precisely what's happening at that interface between the objects and the fingers."

Our ancestors might not have played with wet marbles, but having better gripping fingers and feet would certainly have been advantageous as they foraged for food along lake-shores and by rivers.

It would be interesting to see, observed Dr Smulders, just how many other animals displayed this trait - in particular, in primates.

"If it's in many, many primates then my guess is that the original function might have been locomotion through wet vegetation or wet trees. Whereas, if it's just in humans that we see this then we might consider something much more specific, such as foraging in and along rivers and the like."

From the BBC:

Supernova 'Mingus' could shed light on dark energy

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Long Beach, California

Astronomers have spotted the most distant supernova ever seen.

Nicknamed "Mingus", it was described at the 221st American Astronomical Society meeting in the US.

These lightshows of dying stars have been seen since ancient times, but modern astronomers use details of their light to probe the Universe's secrets.

Ten billion light-years distant, Mingus will help shed light on so-called dark energy, the force that appears to be speeding up cosmic expansion.

Formally called SN SCP-0401, the supernova was something of a chance find in a survey carried out in part by the Supernova Cosmology Project (SCP) using the Hubble space telescope, first undertaken in 2004.

But the data were simply not good enough to pin down what was seen. As David Rubin of the University of California, Berkeley, lead author on the study, told the AAS meeting, "for a sense of brightness, this supernova is about as bright as a firefly viewed from 3,000 miles away".

Further news had to wait until astronauts installed the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble telescope in 2009 and again trained it on the candidate, which had - in an SCP tradition of naming supernovae after composers - already been named after jazz musician Charles Mingus.

"Unfortunately, it took the development of Wide Field Camera 3 to bring home what the [2004] measurements meant," Mr Rubin told BBC News.

"The sensitivity is a few times better, which makes a huge difference, and we have a much cleaner image."

The team went on to confirm that the supernova was in fact a Type 1a - a particular class of exploded star whose light occurs in such a regular way that it is known as a "standard candle".

'Bit of history'

What interests astronomers trying to find ever more distant Type 1a supernovae - distant both in space and in time - is the chance to compare them to better-known, more local supernovae.

"We were able to watch these changes in brightness and spectral features for an event that lasted just a few weeks almost 10 billion years ago," said Saul Perlmutter, who leads the Supernova Cosmology Project.

Prof Perlmutter shared the 2011 Nobel prize in physics for work with Type 1a supernovae that proved our Universe is speeding up in its expansion.

Elucidating the mysterious force, "dark energy", which has been invoked as the cause of the expansion, will require careful study of supernovae all the way back to the epoch of the earliest stars.

"We're seeing two-thirds of the way back to the beginning of the Universe, and we're getting a little bit of history where the physics of what makes a supernova explode have to all work out the same way there as they do near here," he told the meeting.

The group's study is published online and will appear in the Astrophysical Journal on 20 January.

Dark ambitions

The meeting also heard from Joshua Frieman, director of the Dark Energy Survey - a five-year mission using the most powerful camera ever trained on the skies to get to the bottom of the dark matter mystery.

The phone-booth-sized Dark Energy Camera snapped its first images in September 2012 and will begin its formal mission in September this year, looking not only at supernovae but also at three other dark-energy signatures in the cosmos.

Prof Frieman told BBC News that the distant supernova result fits neatly into a story that he hoped the Dark Energy Survey would explore in great detail.

"What they're doing is using the Hubble telescope to go really deep - we're going to use the Dark Energy Survey to go very broad," he explained to BBC News.

"They're finding tens of supernovae at these high [distances], and we're going to find thousands of supernovae not quite as deep. You really need both of those together to really make progress in trying to figure out why the Universe is speeding up."

From the BBC:

Click here to see article with pictures

Gemini telescope catches 'Orion's Bullets'

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Long Beach, California

An astronomical feature called "Orion's Bullets" has been imaged in stunning detail by a shape-shifting optical system on Hawaii's Gemini telescope.

The picture, unveiled at the 221st American Astronomical Society meeting in the US, demonstrates the power of what is called adaptive optics.

It uses lasers shot skyward and mirrors that are changed in shape to perfectly image the lasers' spots on the sky.

This undoes the effects of the Earth's atmosphere, making for sharper images.

The Gemini telescope now has five of these "laser guide stars" and a new type of adaptive optics that provides a wider field of view.

The system, called Gems, was first proposed some 10 years ago, and has just been put through its paces, trained on the Orion Nebula.

"There's a popular notion in the astronomy community that if you're commissioning a new instrument the first object you need to observe is Orion," said Peter Pessev, Gemini science fellow at the observatory.

The Gems team focused on Orion's Bullets, enormous jets of gas ejected from the nebula's centre, where copious star formation is going on and driving winds of material outward.

The image was just a showpiece for what the telescope will now be able to achieve, Dr Pessev told the meeting.

"From an engineering point of view, this new system is a great achievement, and we're really excited because this is going to open a whole new parameter space in... the entire range of topics that are studied in modern astronomy," he said.

From the BBC:

Tiny molecular machine apes cellular production line

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

Manchester scientists have developed a tiny molecular machine that mirrors the function of the ribosome, which builds the proteins in our body's cells.

Just a few millionths of a millimetre in size, the minute machine resembles a ring threaded on a rod.

As this ring moves along the rod, it picks chemical units and assembles them into chains, just as ribosomes join up the building blocks of proteins.

The ultimate goal is to synthesize new drug molecules or new types of plastic.

"Just as robots are used to assemble cars in factories in the big world, one day we hope we will be able to use artificial machines like these in molecular factories to construct new things with great efficiency," said Prof David Leigh from the school of chemistry at Manchester University, UK.

"Ribosomes make proteins, which are just one type of polymer used by nature. In fact, all of biology is based on just four sorts of so-called information polymers - proteins, DNA, RNA and also carbohydrates.

"But with our artificial machines, we're not limited by the same building blocks of nature. So, we should be able to make new materials with other types of building blocks - new types of plastics, new types of catalysts, pharmaceuticals and so on," he told the BBC World Service Science In Action programme.

A scholarly paper in this week's Science Magazine carries details of the research.

The ribosome is one of nature's true marvels. This giant molecule concerns itself with the business of translating and acting on our genetic code.

That code, held in the cell's DNA, is delivered to the ribosome by the "messenger" molecule RNA.

The ribosome reads the code and assembles long polymer chains out of amino acids. These chains then fold to form proteins, and it is the proteins that go on to build and maintain our bodies.

An artificial ribosome, like the one developed in Manchester, functions in a similar way.

The machine's chemical structure is based on a rotaxane, a molecular ring threaded on to a rod. A "reactive arm" is attached to the ring and works its way down the rod, removing and stacking the amino acid units bound to the rod.

A key point is that the sequence for a new polymer chain comes from the scientists. It is controlled by the chemical groups placed along the rod structure.

"The degree of control we have in this is exquisite," said Prof Leigh.

At the moment, the team is only producing small molecules, or peptides, that comprise chains of just a few units in length. This will have to be scaled up to the many tens of units achieved by ribosomes.

But just as insulin for diabetics today is produced in vast vats by engineered microbes, so in the future the Manchester team envisages containers carrying millions upon millions of their artificial machines all churning out the programmed molecules.

"Even though each machine is producing one molecule at a time, if you have a million, million, million of them, all acting to produce the same molecule, then you can produce quantities of the molecule that you can see in a reasonable period of time," said Prof Leigh.

From the BBC:

Fast-food 'linked to childhood asthma and eczema'

Eating fast food three times a week may lead to asthma and eczema in children, say researchers who have looked at global disease and dietary patterns.

Data from more than 500,000 children in more than 50 countries suggests poor diet may be to blame for rising levels of these allergy-related conditions.

Those who ate fast food, such as take-away burgers, risked severe asthma, eczema and itchy, watery eyes.

Eating plenty of fruit appears to be protective, Thorax journal reports.

Fast food often contains high levels of saturated- and trans-fatty acids, which are known to affect immunity, while fruit is rich in antioxidants and other beneficial compounds, say the researchers.

In the study, children in their early teens who ate three or more weekly servings of fast food had a 39% increased risk of severe asthma.

Six- and seven-year-olds had a 27% increased risk.

Eating three or more portions of fruit a week cut the risk of severe asthma, eczema and rhinoconjunctivitis by between 11% and 14%.

The study authors, Prof Innes Asher, from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and Prof Hywel Williams, from the University of Nottingham in the UK, said: "If the associations between fast foods and the symptom prevalence of asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis and eczema is causal, then the findings have major public health significance owing to the rising consumption of fast foods globally."

Generally, people with asthma do not have to follow a special diet.

In some cases, certain foods, such as cow's milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, yeast products, nuts, and some food colourings and preservatives, can make symptoms worse.

Malayka Rahman of Asthma UK, said research suggests that a person's diet may contribute to their risk of developing asthma and that eating healthily may have a beneficial effect.

"Evidence suggests that the vitamins and antioxidants found in fresh fruit and vegetables have a beneficial effect on asthma therefore Asthma UK advises people with asthma to eat a healthy, balanced diet including five portions of fruit or vegetables every day, fish more than twice a week, and pulses more than once a week."

From the BBC:

Children 'may grow out of autism'

By Michelle Roberts Health editor, BBC News online

Some young children accurately diagnosed as autistic lose their symptoms and their diagnosis as they get older, say US researchers.

The findings of the National Institutes of Health study of 112 children appears to challenge the widely held belief that autism is a lifelong condition.

While not conclusive, the study, in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, suggests some children might possibly outgrow autism.

But experts urge caution.

Much more work is needed to find out what might explain the findings.

Dr Deborah Fein and her team at the University of Connecticut studied 34 children who had been diagnosed with autism in early childhood but went on to function as well as 34 other children in their classes at school.

On tests - cognitive and observational, as well as reports from the children's parents and school - they were indistinguishable from their classroom peers. They now showed no sign of problems with language, face recognition, communication or social interaction.

For comparison, the researchers also studied another 44 children of the same age, sex and non-verbal IQ level who had had a diagnosis of "high-functioning" autism - meaning they were deemed to be less severely affected by their condition.

It became clear that the children in the optimal outcome group - the ones who no longer had recognisable signs of autism - had had milder social deficits than the high-functioning autism group in early childhood, although they did have other autism symptoms, like repetitive behaviours and communication problems, that were as severe.

The researchers went back and checked the accuracy of the children's original diagnosis, but found no reason to suspect that they had been inaccurate.

Label for life?

The researchers say there are a number of possible explanations for their findings.

It might be that some children genuinely outgrow their condition. Or perhaps some can compensate for autism-related difficulties.

Dr Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said: "Although the diagnosis of autism is not usually lost over time, the findings suggest that there is a very wide range of possible outcomes.

"Subsequent reports from this study should tell us more about the nature of autism and the role of therapy and other factors in the long term outcome for these children."

It could be that autism cannot always be accurately defined or diagnosed, particularly since the condition affects people in different ways.

Indeed, experts have disagreed about what autism is.

The American Psychiatric Association is currently revising its diagnostic manual - the "bible" for doctors that lists every psychiatric disorder and their symptoms.

Its new version proposes changes he UK's National Autistic Society says could affect the way diagnoses will be given to people on the autism spectrum.

Instead of using the current terms of autistic disorder, Asperger's disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder and PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified), people will be given an umbrella diagnosis of "autism spectrum disorder".

And their impairments will be reduced to two main areas - social communication/interaction and restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities.

Most diagnoses in the UK are based on the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), published by the World Health Organization, which is up for revision in 2015.

According to the National Autistic Society, more than one in every 100 people, more than 500,000 people in all, in the UK have autism.

About a fifth, an estimated 106,000, are school-aged children.

Dr Judith Gould, director of the National Autistic Society's Lorna Wing Centre for Autism, said: "Autism is a lifelong disability affecting the way that people communicate and interact with others.

"This study is looking at a small sample of high functioning people with autism and we would urge people not to jump to conclusions about the nature and complexity of autism, as well its longevity.

"With intensive therapy and support, it's possible for a small sub-group of high functioning individuals with autism to learn coping behaviours and strategies which would 'mask' their underlying condition and change their scoring in the diagnostic tests used to determine their condition in this research.

"This research acknowledges that a diagnosis of autism is not usually lost over time and it is important to recognise the support that people with autism need in order to live the lives of their choosing."

She said getting a diagnosis could be a critical milestone for children with autism and their families, often helping parents to understand their children better and helping them to support their children in reaching their full potential.

From the BBC:

Europe and US agree details for Orion astronaut spacecraft

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent

The US and Europe have cemented their plan to work together on the Americans' next-generation capsule system to take humans beyond Earth.

The Orion vehicle is being built to carry astronauts to the Moon, asteroids and Mars, but it will need a means to propel itself through space.

Europe has now formally agreed to provide this technology.

Space agency executives have just signed an "implementing agreement" to cover the legal aspects of the work.

The first flight of Orion with its European-built "service module" will take place in 2017.

This demonstration will be unmanned and will see Orion go around the back of the Moon before returning to Earth for an ocean splashdown.

If all goes well, a crew is expected to repeat the feat in about 2021. The venture would echo the famous Apollo 8 mission of 1968.

The service module is the unit that sits directly behind the capsule and provides the propulsion, power, temperature control, as well as holding the astronauts’ supplies of water and air.

"This is a new page in the transatlantic co-operation," said Thomas Reiter, the director of human spaceflight and operations at the European Space Agency (Esa).

"This is the first time that Esa is involved in the critical path for a human transportation system. It is a fantastic perspective for the future, taking humans beyond low-Earth orbit to new destinations for exploration," he told BBC News.

The current plan calls for Europe to build the prototype module for 2017 and a number of components that would be needed for the second vehicle in 2021, although a formal go-ahead to complete this additional model is some years off.

A clear subtext, of course, is that Europe hopes this initial deal will develop into a long-term relationship, and that this will increase the chances of its astronauts joining their American colleagues on missions into deep space.

Europe and the US will be using a barter arrangement to fund the module’s production.

This means the Americans will pay no cash for the unit. Rather, they will view the free receipt of the hardware as compensation for the costs they themselves have incurred through Europe’s use of the International Space Station (ISS).

To date, these costs have been covered by Europe’s deliveries of cargo to the platform using its big robotic freighter known as the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV).

But the production of these ATVs is nearing its end, and without the Orion option Europe would be in debt to the US to the cash-equivalent of 450m euros (£375m; $600m) for the period 2017-2020.

"More importantly than that financial piece is just the experience gained through the International Space Station," said Bill Gerstenmaier, Nasa's associate administrator for human exploration and operations.

"To build that wonderful facility on orbit, we needed to work a lot of technical issues, a lot of technical problems. And that experienced gained and that trust that grew between our European partners and our Nasa teams allowed us to go ahead and put together this service module agreement you see today."

European industry will now take key elements from the design of its ATV to make the Orion service module.

This work is quite advanced because feasibility studies in recent years have already considered how the ATV itself could be adapted into a crew vehicle.

"We are not starting from scratch," Mr Reiter explained. "Were that the case, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to meet the scheduling constraints."

One small, but nonetheless intriguing, aspect of the service module’s production is the role, if any, that might be given to UK industry.

It was Britain’s offer during discussions at the recent Esa Ministerial Council in November to put 20m euros (£16m; $27m) into the cost of the vehicle that helped ease the project towards approval. Under Esa rules, the UK could expect some return on this investment.

Mr Reiter said it was too early to talk specifics. However, he did add that at least some of the return could take the form of equipment procured for use on the space station's European science laboratory, Columbus.

Esa is expected to sign a formal contract with Astrium (Bremen, Germany) in the coming days to lead the production of the service module.

From the BBC:

Phone apps may delay skin cancer diagnosis

Using a smartphone app to decide whether a mole is cancerous could delay sometimes life-saving treatment, according to American researchers.

The University of Pittsburgh scientists put four applications to the test by showing them 188 pictures of cancers and less concerning skin conditions.

Three of the apps wrongly labelled the cancerous lesions as unproblematic in almost a third of cases.

Doctors warn using phones rather than seeking expert help could be harmful.

The research, published in the journal JAMA Dermatology, looked at four commonly used applications.

The images selected to test the apps were all of skin lesions that were later removed and checked for an accurate diagnosis.

Three of the apps analysed the pictures using automated algorithms, without the involvement of doctors.

But users submitting pictures to the fourth app had their images reviewed by a qualified skin specialist.

In this case only one out of 53 cancerous legions was misdiagnosed, but this app cost $5 (£3.10) per use.

Prof Laura Ferris, lead researcher of the study, said: "It is important that users don't allow their apps to take the place of medical advice and physician diagnosis.

"If they see a concerning lesion but the smartphone app incorrectly judges it to be benign, they may not follow up with a physician," she added.

Deborah Mason, of the British Association of Dermatologists, said: "There are a number of mole-check apps on the market - those that purport to offer diagnosis should be treated with caution.

"A diagnosis can only be made by a medical professional and anyone with a suspicious mole should speak to their GP or dermatologist about it."

The researchers also raised concerns about the lack of regulation of applications purporting to give medical advice.

The US Food and Drug Administration is currently looking at the possibility of regulating some applications related to health.

Last year in America two application developers were fined for making unsubstantiated claims that their software could treat acne using a coloured light from a smartphone.

The UK regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, said: "The regulation of software such as these health applications is complex and needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

"Work is progressing at the European level to produce the appropriate guidance to most effectively regulate this rapidly growing area."

From the BBC:

Web 're-defining' human identity - report

By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News

Social networks such as Facebook and on-line gaming are changing people's view of who they are and their place in the world, according to a report for the government's chief scientist.

The report, published by Prof Sir John Beddington, says that traditional ideas of identity will be less meaningful.

One consequence could be communities becoming less cohesive.

This change could be harnessed to bring positive changes or if ignored could fuel social exclusion, says the study.

"This can be a positive force, exemplified by the solidarity seen in the London 2012 Olympics or a destructive force, for example the 2011 riots," says the report.

"Due to the development of smart phones, social networks and the trend towards (greater) connectivity disparate groups can be more easily mobilised where their interests temporarily coincide."

"For example," it says, "a 'flash mob' can be mobilised between people who have not previously met".

The report, entitled "Future Identities," says that near continuous access to the internet, termed "hyper-connectivity", will drive profound changes to society over the next 10 years.

'Hyper-connectivity'

Prof Beddington commissioned the study as part of the Government Office for Science's Foresight programme - the influential Foresight reports look ahead to highlight emerging trends in science and technology with a view to informing policies across government departments.

"The most dynamic trend (in determining identity) is hyper-connectivity," Prof Beddington told BBC News.

"The collection and use of data by government and the private sector, the balancing of individual rights and liberties against privacy and security and the issue of how to tackle social exclusion, will be affected by these trends," he said. "I hope the evidence in today's report will contribute to the policy making process."

This latest report on identity undertook 20 separate reviews in which leading UK and international experts assessed research in computer science, criminology and social sciences.

It states that the changing nature of identities will have substantial implications for what is meant by communities and by social integration. The study shows that traditional elements that shape a person's identity, such as their religion, ethnicity, job and age are less important than they once were.

Instead, particularly among younger people, their view of themselves is shaped increasingly by on-line interactions of social networks and on online role playing games.

The study found that far from creating superficial or fantasy identities that some critics suggest, in many cases it allowed people to escape the preconceptions of those immediately around them and find their "true" identity. This is especially true of disabled people who told researchers that online gaming enabled them to socialise on an equal footing with others.

"The internet can allow many people to realise their identities more fully, " the authors write. "Some people who have been shy or lonely or feel less attractive discover they can socialise more successfully and express themselves more freely online".

The report points out that in 2011, 60% of internet users were members of a social network site, a huge surge in usage, up 43% from 2007. Consequently, it says that there may greater political activism using these networks as was seen in the revolution in Tunisia and the mobilisation of dissent in Egypt and Libya.

There will also be a blurring of work and social identities as photos and details of people's personal lives become increasingly public on social networking sites. The report cites a hypothetical example of how a young person was denied promotion because her employer found drunken photos of her from her university days.

The report says that as the distinction between online and real world identities diminishes criminals are likely to try and exploit the many new forms of interlinked data relating people's identities and from social media and professional and financial websites in order to steal identities.

From the BBC:

New venture 'to mine asteroids'

By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website

A new venture is joining the effort to extract mineral resources on asteroids.

The announcement of plans by Deep Space Industries to exploit the rare metals present in the space rocks turns asteroid mining into a two-horse race.

The other venture, Planetary Resources, went public with its proposals last year.

Advocates of asteroid mining hope it could turn into a trillion-dollar business, but some scientists are highly sceptical of the idea.

Deep Space Industries wants to send a fleet of asteroid-prospecting spacecraft out into the Solar System to hunt for resources.

These spacecraft, which the company has dubbed "Fireflies", would use low-cost CubeSat components and benefit from discounted delivery to space by ride-sharing on the launch of larger communications satellites.

The Fireflies would have a mass of about 55 lb (25 kg) and be launched for the first time in 2015 on journeys of two to six months.

The company then wants to launch bigger spacecraft - which it calls "Dragonflies" - for round-trip visits that bring back samples.

These expeditions would take two to four years, depending on the target, and would return 60 to 150 lbs of material from target asteroids.

"Using resources harvested in space is the only way to afford permanent space development," said the company's chief executive David Gump.

"More than 900 new asteroids that pass near Earth are discovered every year. They can be like the Iron Range of Minnesota was for the Detroit car industry last century - a key resource located near where it was needed. In this case, metals and fuel from asteroids can expand the in-space industries of this century."

Asteroids could yield precious minerals such as gold, platinum and rare-Earth metals. But some are also thought to harbour water ice, which could be used as a raw material for the manufacture of rocket propellant or even breathable air.

The other firm in the mining race, Planetary Resources, has backing from several billionaire investors, including Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, software executive Charles Simonyi and filmmaker James Cameron.

That company wants to start by launching orbiting telescopes that would identify suitable asteroid targets for mineral exploitation.

However, some scientists struggle to see how cost-effective asteroid mining could be, even with the high value of gold and platinum.

They point out that an upcoming Nasa mission to return just 60g (two ounces) of material from an asteroid will cost about $1bn.

From the BBC:

Dog evolved 'on the waste dump'

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

Anyone who owns a dog knows that it will rummage around in the kitchen bin looking for food, given half a chance.

But this annoying behaviour may have a more profound undercurrent than we realise, according to scientists.

A new study of dog genetics reveals numerous genes involved in starch metabolism, compared with wolves.

It backs an idea that some dogs emerged from wolves that were able to scavenge and digest the food waste of early farmers, the team tells Nature journal.

No-one knows precisely when or how our ancestors became so intimately connected with dogs, but the archaeological evidence indicates it was many thousands of years ago.

One suggestion is that the modern mutt emerged from ancient hunter-gatherers' use of wolves as hunting companions or guards.

But another opinion holds that domestication started with wolves that stole our food leftovers and eventually came to live permanently around humans as a result.

"This second hypothesis says that when we settled down, and in conjunction with the development of agriculture, we produced waste dumps around our settlements; and suddenly there was this new food resource, a new niche, for wolves to make use of, and the wolf that was best able to make use of it became the ancestor of the dog," explained Erik Axelsson from Uppsala University.

"So, we think our findings fit well with this theory that the dog evolved on the waste dump," he told BBC News.

'Generic' dog

Dr Axelsson and colleagues examined the DNA of more than 50 modern dogs from breeds as diverse as the cocker spaniel and the German shepherd. They then compared their generic genetic information with those of 12 wolves taken from across the world.

The Swedish-US team scanned the DNA sequences of the two types of canid for regions of major difference. These would be locations likely to contain genes important in the rise of the domesticated dog.

Axelsson's group identified 36 such regions, carrying a little over a hundred genes. The analysis detected the presence of two major functional categories - genes involved in brain development and starch metabolism.

In the case of the latter, it seems dogs have many more genes that encode the enzymes needed to break down starch, something that would have been advantageous in an ancestor scavenging on the discarded wheat and other crop products of early farmers.

"Wolves also have these genes but they don't use them as efficiently as dogs," said Dr Axelsson.

"When we look at the wolf genome, we only see one copy of the gene [for the amylase enzyme] on each chromosome. When we look at the dog genome, we see a range from two to 15 copies; and on average a dog carries seven copies more than the wolf.

"That means the dog is a lot more efficient at making use of the nutrition in starch than the wolf."

As far as the brain development genes are concerned, these probably reflect some of the behavioural differences we now see in the two canids.

The dog is a much more docile creature, the likely consequence of early humans preferentially working with animals they found easier to tame.

"Previous experiments have indicated that when you select for a reduction in aggressiveness, you obviously get a tamer animal but you also get an animal that retains juvenile characteristics much longer during development, sometimes into adulthood," said Dr Axelsson.

This might go some way to explaining the oft-repeated observation that dogs are permanently stuck in a kind of puppyhood.

Open debate

The study of the origin of dogs remains, in many ways, a puzzling field.

Fossil evidence suggests some populations could have been around tens of thousands of years ago, long before the emergence of agriculture. Some researchers have tried to use the regular rate at which error patterns appear in dog DNA as a kind clock to time their rise, but this has produced contradictory results.

One confounding issue might be that domestication happened more than once.

Dr Carles Vila, from the Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics Group at the Donana Biological Station in Seville, Spain, said the debate was wide open.

"I think that modern dogs derived from multiple wolf populations," he observed.

"It could be that dog domestication started once with some animals staying with humans which were then regularly back-crossed with wolves and that could have the same effect. But there could have been completely independent domestications. What is clear is that the number of bone remains is very rare more than 14,000 years ago."

From the BBC:

Star Trek style 'tractor beam' created by scientists

A real-life "tractor beam", which uses light to attract objects, has been developed by scientists.

It is hoped it could have medical applications by targeting and attracting individual cells.

The research, published in Nature Photonics and led by the University of St Andrews, is limited to moving microscopic particles.

In science fiction programmes such as Star Trek, tractor beams are used to move much more massive objects.

It is not the first time science has aimed to replicate the feat - albeit at smaller scales.

In 2011, researchers from China and Hong Kong showed how it might be done with laser beams of a specific shape - and the US space agency Nasa has even funded a study to examine how the technique might help with manipulating samples in space.

The new study's lead researcher Dr Tomas Cizmar, research fellow in the School of Medicine at the University of St Andrews, said while the technique is very new, it had huge potential.

He said: "The practical applications could be very great, very exciting. The tractor beam is very selective in the properties of the particles it acts on, so you could pick up specific particles in a mixture."

"Eventually this could be used to separate white blood cells, for example."

Usually when microscopic objects are hit by a beam of light, they are forced along the direction of the beam by the light photons. That radiation force was first identified by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1619 when he observed that tails of comets always point away from the Sun.

Dr Cizmar's team's technique allows for that force to be reversed which he said some people might find counter-intuitive.

"It's surprising," he said. "Only when we looked in detail at the process did we see the reversal. It's quite a narrow field it occurs at."

'Exciting time'

The team at the University of St Andrews worked with colleagues at the Institute of Scientific Instruments (ISI) in the Czech Republic.

Prof Zemanek, from the ISI, said: "The whole team have spent a number of years investigating various configurations of particles delivery by light. I am proud our results were recognised in this very competitive environment and I am looking forward to new experiments and applications. It is a very exciting time."

Practical scientific theories on real-life tractor beams have been developed since 1960, but it is thought this is the first time a beam has been used to draw microscopic objects towards the light source.

Scientists have previously used a technique called an optical vortex to move individual particles using beams of light, but this new approach works in liquids and a vacuum.

The first appearance of a tractor beam in fiction is thought to have been in the American author EE Smith's story The Skylark of Space, which was serialised in 1928. The story contained references to an "attractor beam".

It has been a staple plot device in science fiction television and movies allowing objects like space ships to be trapped in a beam of light, but Dr Cizmar said this particular technique would not eventually lead to that.

He said: "Unfortunately there is a transfer of energy. On a microscopic scale that is OK, but on a macro scale it would cause huge problems.

"It would result in a massive amount of heating of an object, like a space shuttle. So trapping a space ship is out of the question."

From the BBC:

'Quantum smell' idea gains ground

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

A controversial theory that the way we smell involves a quantum physics effect has received a boost, following experiments with human subjects.

It challenges the notion that our sense of smell depends only on the shapes of molecules we sniff in the air.

Instead, it suggests that the molecules' vibrations are responsible.

A way to test it is with two molecules of the same shape, but with different vibrations. A report in PLOS ONE shows that humans can distinguish the two.

Tantalisingly, the idea hints at quantum effects occurring in biological systems - an idea that is itself driving a new field of science, as the BBC feature article Are birds hijacking quantum physics? points out.

But the theory - first put forward by Luca Turin, now of the Fleming Biomedical Research Sciences Centre in Greece - remains contested and divisive.

The idea that molecules' shapes are the only link to their smell is well entrenched, but Dr Turin said there were holes in the idea.

He gave the example of molecules that include sulphur and hydrogen atoms bonded together - they may take a wide range of shapes, but all of them smell of rotten eggs.

"If you look from the [traditional] standpoint... it's really hard to explain," Dr Turin told BBC News.

"If you look from the standpoint of an alternative theory - that what determines the smell of a molecule is the vibrations - the sulphur-hydrogen mystery becomes absolutely clear."

Molecules can be viewed as a collection of atoms on springs, so the atoms can move relative to one another. Energy of just the right frequency - a quantum - can cause the "springs" to vibrate, and in a 1996 paper in Chemical Senses Dr Turin said it was these vibrations that explained smell.

The mechanism, he added, was "inelastic electron tunnelling": in the presence of a specific "smelly" molecule, an electron within a smell receptor in your nose can "jump" - or tunnel - across it and dump a quantum of energy into one of the molecule's bonds - setting the "spring" vibrating.

But the established smell science community has from the start argued that there is little proof of this.

Of horses and unicorns

One way to test the idea was to prepare two molecules of identical shape but with different vibrations - done by replacing a molecule's hydrogen atoms with their heavier cousins called deuterium.

Leslie Vosshall of The Rockefeller University set out in 2004 to disprove Dr Turin's idea with a molecule called acetophenone and its "deuterated" twin.

The work in Nature Neuroscience suggested that human participants could not distinguish between the two, and thus that vibrations played no role in what we smell.

But in 2011, Dr Turin and colleagues published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that fruit flies can distinguish between the heavier and lighter versions of the same molecule.

A repeat of the test with humans in the new paper finds that, as in Prof Vosshall's work, the subjects could not tell the two apart. But the team then developed a brand new, far larger pair of molecules - cyclopentadecanone - with more hydrogen or deuterium bonds to amplify the purported effect.

In double-blind tests, in which neither the experimenter nor the participant knew which sample was which, subjects were able to distinguish between the two versions.

Still, Prof Vosshall believes the vibrational theory to be no more than fanciful.

"I like to think of the vibration theory of olfaction and its proponents as unicorns. The rest of us studying olfaction are horses," she told BBC News.

"The problem is that proving that a unicorn exists or does not exist is impossible. This debate on the vibration theory or the existence of unicorns will never end, but the very important underlying question of why things smell the way they do will continue to be answered by the horses among us."

Tim Jacob, a smell researcher at the University of Cardiff, said the work was "supportive but not conclusive".

"But the fact is that nobody has been able to unequivocally contradict [Dr Turin]," he told BBC News.

"There are many, many problems with the shape theory of smell - many things it doesn't explain that the vibrational theory does."

And although many more scientists are taking the vibrational theory seriously than back in 1996, it remains an extraordinarily polarised debate.

"He's had some peripheral support, but... people don't want to line up behind Luca," Prof Jacob said. "It's scientific suicide."

Columbia University's Richard Axel, whose work on mapping the genes and receptors of our sense of smell garnered the 2004 Nobel prize for physiology, said the kinds of experiments revealed this week would not resolve the debate - only a microscopic look at the receptors in the nose would finally show what is at work.

"Until somebody really sits down and seriously addresses the mechanism and not inferences from the mechanism... it doesn't seem a useful endeavour to use behavioural responses as an argument," he told BBC News.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not writing off this theory, but I need data and it hasn't been presented."

From the BBC:

Microsoft launches Office 2013 software suite

Microsoft has launched a new version of its Office software suite.

Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook have been redesigned to work better with touch-screen-controlled computers.

They also integrate the firm's Skype video chat facility. Users can add further functions via a new app store.

The programs account for a major part of Microsoft's earnings. The firm hopes to keep users loyal by offering more powerful features than cheaper online alternatives.

In the last year the firm's Business Division, which creates the software, generated just under $24bn (£15.2bn), roughly a third of the firm's revenue.

However, a 4% dip in the US company's most recent quarterly profits was linked to the fact that many consumers had held off buying the older version of the software ahead of the revamp.

If it proves a success it might also drive sales of new Windows 8 or Windows RT-powered computers, which can take advantage of the applications' improved touch controls.

Studies suggest users are switching to the systems at a slower rate than they adopted Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

Microsoft confounded rumours by not releasing a version of the Office software for Apple's iPad tablets. It has also decided not to offer the products on Android devices.

Cloud storage

The retooled software offers a touch mode that makes several of its controls bigger so they are more finger-friendly as well as including the ability to swipe and pinch-and-zoom documents. Files can also be viewed in "read mode", which displays them in a format that particularly suits tablets.

By default, files are saved to the firm's SkyDrive online cloud storage facility, although users can choose to save them on their hard drive if they wish.

Additional plug-ins are available from a new Office Store. These include the ability to add Twitter functionality to the Outlook email tool and to consult Encyclopaedia Britannica articles from within Word.

Many of these are free, although US firm Sensei Project Solutions is among the first to charge a fee, for its "task analyser", which is designed to identify problems or missing information in users' documents.

Subscription bundles

Consumers can buy the suite for use on one PC for $140 - £110 in the UK - but Microsoft appears to favour a subscription deal for its Office 365 Home Premium edition, which is the focus of the promotional activity on its site.

This charges $100 (£80) for one year's access on up to five PCs or Macs and bundles in 60 minutes of Skype calls a month as well as more SkyDrive storage.

"Over the past two years Office has been Microsoft's largest revenue stream," Colin Gillis, senior tech analyst at BGC Partners, told the BBC.

"But it's more than just sales - it's the glue that keeps users coming to the Windows operating system.

"It's the one thing that the iPad doesn't have. Microsoft is missing out on revenue by not selling it for Apple's device and at some point they may have to in order to prevent an alternative blossoming - but for now it gives an edge to Windows and the company's own Surface devices."

A version of the online Office 365 apps for businesses is due for release on 27 February.

From the BBC:

Homing pigeon 'Bermuda Triangle' explained

By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC World Service

The mystery of the "Bermuda Triangle" of the homing pigeon world may have been solved.

For years, scientists have been baffled as to why the usually excellent navigators get lost when released from a particular site in New York State.

But new research suggests the birds are using low frequency sounds to find their way around - and they cannot hear the rumble at this US location.

The study is published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

The lead author of the paper, Dr Jonathan Hagstrum, from the US Geological Survey, said that the birds were creating "acoustic maps" of their surroundings.

But some other researchers said the theory was controversial and there was much debate over how homing pigeons navigate so efficiently.

Catch the pigeon

The puzzle of the vanishing pigeons began in the 1960s.

Professor Bill Keeton from Cornell University was trying to understand the birds' astonishing ability to find their way home from places they have never previously visited.

He released birds throughout New York State, but was surprised to discover that whenever the pigeons were released at Jersey Hill, near Ithaca, they became disorientated and flew about aimlessly.

This happened again and again, apart from on one occasion on 13 August 1969 when the birds' navigational prowess returned and they flew back to their loft.

Dr Hagstrum has now come up with an explanation.

He said: "The way birds navigate is that they use a compass and they use a map. The compass is usually the position of the Sun or the Earth's magnetic field, but the map has been unknown for decades.

"I have found they are using sound as their map... and this will tell them where they are relative to their home."

The pigeons, he said, use "infrasound", which is an extremely low-frequency sound that is below the range of human hearing.

He explained: "The sound originates in the ocean. Waves in the deep ocean are interfering and they create sound in both the atmosphere and the Earth. You can pick this energy up anywhere on Earth, in the centre of a continent even."

He believes that when the birds are at their unfamiliar release site, they listen for the signature of the infrasound signal from their home - and then use this to find their bearings.

However, infrasound can be affected by changes in the atmosphere.

Dr Hagstrum used temperature and wind records taken from the dates of the various experimental releases to calculate how the sound would have travelled from the pigeons' base to Jersey Hill.

"The temperature structure and the wind structure of the atmosphere were such in upstate New York that the sound was bent up and over Jersey Hill," he explained.

This meant the birds could not hear it and got lost - apart from the day that the birds found their way home.

He said: "On 13 August 1969, there was either a wind shear or temperature inversion in the troposphere that bent the sound back down so it arrived right back at Jersey Hill on that day, and that day alone."

Ruffled feathers

Dr Hagstrum thinks that disruptions of infrasound may also explain other homing pigeon puzzles, where large numbers of pigeons lose their way, such as a race in 1997 across the English channel where 60,000 birds veered off course.

He admitted his work was "controversial", but said: "This doesn't prove it by any stretch - but it puts out a new idea, which, as far as I'm concerned, is the best explanation of what pigeons are doing, because it explains what has been going on at Jersey Hill."

Others have put forward different ideas for how pigeons find their way, suggesting that the birds use smell, visual clues or the Earth's magnetic field, or even a combination of all of these.

Tim Guilford, professor of animal behaviour from the University of Oxford, said: "Whilst there is disagreement about the details, what we know from a large body of experimental evidence is that access to atmospheric odours is usually necessary, and often sufficient, to explain pigeons' navigational performance from unfamiliar areas, when combined with the time-compensated Sun compass (on sunny days) and perhaps a back-up magnetic compass (on cloudy days).

"When birds become familiar with their wider surroundings, however, they start to depend increasingly on topographical features (probably visual) forming habitual routes home across the landscape."

He said that Dr Hagstrum had used an "interesting approach" and that it was valuable to explore new ideas.

However, he added: "Given the volume of evidence for other mechanisms, infrasound seems unlikely to be the whole explanation."

From the BBC:

EA boss denies video games encourage violent attacks

By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

John Riccitiello spoke out on the subject during a conference call with bank analysts following his firm's latest earnings forecast.

But he acknowledged that his industry did face a "perception issue".

The topic has become the focus of political debate in the US following shootings in a Connecticut school and a Colorado cinema.

After the incidents, the National Rifle Association (NRA) - which itself had been accused of culpability - said the video game industry sowed "violence against its own people".

Republican congresswoman Diane Franklin subsequently proposed a sales tax on violent titles, saying the money should be used to "finance mental health programs and law enforcement measures to prevent mass shootings".

Former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader went further, accusing games publishers of being "electronic child molesters" and demanded regulation.

Research studies

Vice President Joseph Biden was recently tasked with heading an inquiry into the causes of gun violence and specifically looked at the issue of computer games.

He concluded: "There is no hard data as to whether or not these excessively violent video games in fact cause people to engage in behaviour that is antisocial, including using guns."

However, during an online video interview, he also referred to a 2008 research paper published by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

It said that a study of US and Japanese youth had suggested playing violent video games was "a significant risk factor for later physically aggressive behaviour".

The research team behind the report also published a follow-up paper in 2010, in the American Psychological Association's journal, saying there should be "public education" so parents and schools could address the issue.

But the vice president said the studies had not made "the next connection" - that game playing actually led to violent acts - and concluded that more research was needed.

Wrestling with critics

As well as being EA's chief executive, Mr Riccitiello also chairs the US's Entertainment Software Rating Board - which decides what age guidance and warnings should go on games packaging - and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) lobby body.

He said his industry had been "stunned and horrified" by the recent shootings but denied it had had a role in these or other attacks.

"There's been an enormous amount of research done in the entertainment field about looking for linkages between entertainment content and actual violence, and they haven't found any," he said.

"Hundreds of millions of dollars of the research has been done [and] has been unable to find a linkage because there isn't one.

"Now, having said all that, and with all, if you will, humility about the world we live in, we understand that while there may not be an actual problem, given all the finger pointing going on in the press, there appears to be the perception of a problem, and we do have to wrestle with that."

He added that other members of the ESA were also ready to "step up" to tackle the issue.

His comments follow other calls for the video games industry to do more to engage in the debate.

The PC-games-focused site Rock Paper Shotgun recently published an editorial suggesting those involved in the industry had tried to avoid discussing the issue in order to avoid fuelling the cause of critics with "knee-jerking agendas". But it added it was "irresponsible" not to try to convince the NRA and others that they were wrong.

"There is no-one who needs to know about the effects of video game violence more than gamers themselves," the site's co-editor John Walker told the BBC.

"So far all studies have shown that games do not cause a person to become violent, but that doesn't mean we should become blase about it or dismiss it out of hand.

"Gamers and producers need to frequently talk about the subject and be seen to openly discuss both the positive and negative effects gaming may have."